


Stay Away From the Woods

by Nigaki



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Established Relationship, Killing, M/M, No Beta, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nigaki/pseuds/Nigaki
Summary: There are two strange man living in the woods. People from nerbay town don't like who those man are.
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 50





	Stay Away From the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what that is. I was listening to Bottom of the River far too many times.

The evening was peaceful and calm, like it usually was in this parts. That’s why they made it their home when they arrived a year ago. Not too far from any civilization, but not too close to it either, just right. They were rarely seeing any people around, nobody wandered this deep into woods and if someone did, it was usually a lone hunter that didn’t even pay attention to the small cabin in the middle of the forest.

There was a small town nearby where people were wary of them, even scared. The locals thought they were strange and possibly dangerous and so they tended to stay away. Not that they tried to correct those people, visiting the town only once a month and never speaking to anybody while there. Locals saw them as the pair of freaks since the beginning and they were fine with it. It was even better than being friendly, no one bothered them that way and they could peacefully live in their little cabin.

They loved it here. And they loved their usual evening routine.

Each day they would sit at the porch, enjoying the last rays of a setting sun and read until it would become too dark to do so outside. They would get back to the house then and read some more, sitting in the armchairs in front of a fireplace, their fingers linked over the space between them. They would sit like that for another couple of minutes before it was time to eat.

Arthur was always cooking for both of them and that’s what he was going to do today as well when he put away his book and stretched, letting go of his lover’s hand in the process. John smiled warmly at him from his place. The younger man marked the page in the book and placed it on the small table standing between their armchairs.

“Dinner?” he asked and Arthur nodded. They both looked at the clock standing on the fireplace. It wasn’t even 9 yet. “I could hunt us some dinner. A rabbit or two.”

“Sounds good.” It’s been few days since they ate meat. “Think you can be done in half an hour?”

Arthur hated eating very late, right before the sleep. It made sleeping tiring and he could never fall asleep as fast as normal, instead he tossed in bed which always caused John to get annoyed as well and neither of them could end with a good night of sleep.

“If I don’t, we can always stay up late and I can help you get sleepy with some tossing in the sheets that doesn’t involve you kicking me in the shin,” John proposed and moved his eyebrows suggestively. Arthur grinned.

“We’ll see.”

John stood up and come closer to Arthur, bending down to kiss him sweetly on the lips.

“Wait for me and enjoy your book,” the younger man said to him, their lips just inches away. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“Somehow I doubt you will,” Arthur said after him. “I’m getting really hungry, John, you better come back soon or I’m eating without you. We can toss around in sheets without any games.”

“Sure thing, sunshine,” John replied and left the living room, tossing his shirt carelessly on the floor. Arthur shook his head.

“This boy will never learn,” he complained to himself when he heard doors being closed.

He went to pick up the shirt to straighten it and place it on the sofa before getting back to his book and sitting in the armchair again, with legs stretched in front of him, and letting the fire warm his bare feet. He only read for ten minutes or so before he decided there is no need to waste time and went to the kitchen to start preparing dinner and make some tea for both of them.

Arthur barely filled the kettle with water and put it on a stove when he heard noises outside. they were faint, easy to miss. It could be an animal, they often came close to their house but when Arthur looked through the window in the kitchen, he saw a blink of light between the woods surrounding their home. Only one animal on this planet used fire.

With a flick of his finger, he put out the fire in the stove and slowly came back to the living room, avoiding the places where the floor always cracked. His and John’s cat, Miss Grimshaw, silently watched him from her place on the shelf. The noises were becoming louder despite people that were causing them trying to be stealthy. Arthur heard steps, lots of them, horses as well and it wasn’t his and John’s trusty steeds. For a moment, there was a rattling sound of a chain. Arthur smirked and looked outside through another window. Someone rushed across the clearing, their body merely a shadow in the dark forest. Another person followed, and then another one. Only three, but he knew there was more of them and they’re surrounding the house. 

Arthur got away from the window, sat down in his armchair and picked up his book. He dimmed the fire in the fireplace, it was only giving a soft glow now, barely lighting up the whole room, the lonely island of light in the house draped with blanket of darkness.

They will know where to find him.

The book laid open in his lap, he didn’t read, it was too dark for that, so he just sat there and waited, listening to the footsteps outside. When he heard them on the porch, it only took another second for people to bust inside screaming bunch of different things, calling him different names. At least he knew they weren’t here because of his homosexuality.

They found him easily, just like he wanted them to. They jumped on him immediately after their eyes met his, they didn’t want to take any chance of him escaping. Arthur acted startled when three big man grabbed him and yanked him out of his sit. Miss Grimshaw hissed at assailants and run away before anyone was able to hurt her just for being a black cat. 

“What the… Let go of me!”

The book fell on the floor and he was dragged outside of the house. He could already feel bruises forming on his arms where the man held him. He was fighting back, pretending he wanted to escape. They held him tighter and soon put chains on him, bounding his legs together and his hand behind his back. Three man were still holding him, making sure he wasn’t trying anything.

It looked like every man from the town came for him, Arthur saw even the oldest ones that always been barely able to stand but now they looked strong and healthy like in their youth. There was so much anger in the mob’s eyes, so much disgust directed at him entirely. They didn’t come here to scare him or chase him away. They’re here to kill him. 

Arthur stopped struggling and looked in the eyes of the local priest. The preist came forward, and the mob parted for him, a dozen of man surrounded them with torches and weapons in hands.

The priest looked back at him. He tried to act brave and sure of himself, but Arthur could see fear in his eyes, his hands trembling and tightly gripping the rosary and the small bible in them. Arthur smirked seeing that, and the fear in priest’s eyes only grew.

“Arthur Morgan, you’re being accused of using magic, starting pagan rituals around our town and bringing misery on it!” the priest declared. The mob answered him with more names and insults. They called Arthur a witch, devil, called his life a blasphemy.

“I ain’t no witch,” Arthur swore and struggled some more in his chains. “I’m not a woman!”

They didn’t believe him, only screamed lauder, demanding punishment for him, demanding his death.

“You live in the woods, your house is surrounded by weird symbols and some of us saw you picking up poisonous plants growing in the forest. Ever since you and your friend showed up there were animal sacrifices happening in the woods. And now our children are dying because of the plague you brought on our town! You cursed it, cursed us! You’re a sorcerer and we don’t want your kind anywhere near us!”

“That’s no curse, you moron, that’s scarlet fever,” Arthur pointed out.

He had seen sick children the last time he and John were visiting the town. They were coughing, suffering a high fever, one of them was vomiting right on the street and all of them were red on the face, their cheeks kept in a permanent blush. No sick adults and even if there was some, it wasn’t as bad as with children. He and John recognized the sickness right away. 

But not the priest. 

“You brought plague on us!” the man continued. Arthur rolled his eyes. Nothing he would say would work, they were too blinded with hatred and fear to see he was no threat to them ever since the beginning. “The devil send you to destroy our little town!” The mob shouted in agreement. “The sentence for your crime will be death! You will be drown in the river and your body will be dragged by the horse around the town and hanged in the town square to clean it from your curse!”

The mob brought the wagon to them and Arthur was thrown on it like a sack of potatoes. Some of the man spat at him, other threw rocks, still shouting how he’s a reincarnation of devil and that he should die.

“You’re making a big mistake,” he warned them. If he could, he always avoided bloodshed of innocent. “I’ve been here for one year and nothing happened before. This sickness is no one’s fault.

“Liar!”

“He’s a witch!”

“Devil in the flesh!”

“Burn him!”

“Drown him!”

“Well then,” Arthur muttered bitterly under his breath. “If that’s what you want.”

“We opened our eyes, we see your tricks now!” Arthur was getting tired of those speeches. “Ever since you came here there was strange things happening in our town.”

“What exactly?” he asked. “The cows stopped giving milk? River turned into blood?”

He couldn’t think of a single thing that was so unusual and never happened before that caused the whole town to grab pitchforks and torches, and start a lynch.

“My wife had a miscarriage!” someone shouted from the crowd. “She was never sick and one day there was blood between her legs! It’s your fault!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just biology,” he answered but his words were overshouted by more angry yells.

“Mice invaded the whole town!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed all the cats!”

“Your cabin was ruined when you arrived and couple of days later it was good as new!”

“It's called renovation.”

How did those people lived so far if even a simple repair was a witchcraft to them?

“Silence, witch!” the priest sneered. “Your words mean nothing, you’re just trying to escape.”

“Actually, no, I’m being a good boy just lying there while you insult me because of something that’s not my fault,” he reminded the priest. ”Let me go and forget about the whole thing before it turn nasty.”

Everyone ignored him. Just like they were ignoring the fact that all of what happened, supposedly because of him, would’ve happened anyway, with or without him living nearby. Just like it was happening for years before. All those miscarriages, mice and sickness were nothing new. All of the despair seemed to fall on the town at the same time and there was no one educated to tell them it’s not some magic or their god punishing them. There was no doctor to tell them their curse is a common sickness among children. There was only a priest speaking about the devil and two strange man living in the woods, perfect for putting a blame on. The mob didn’t want explanation, they already had it, now they wanted a guilty person and to see their blood. 

“You will be killed for what you did.” The mob cheered after priest’s words. “Especially for cursing innocent children.”

“It’s a disease, not a curse!”

He knew the difference.

The crowd set off, and Arthur with them, lying on the wagon like an animal being brought to slaughter. In the way, he was. The ride to the river didn’t took long, but listening to insults for ten minutes straight quickly became boring.

The mob marched through the forest, yelling about killing the witch, their torches held high. The priest was praying, mumbling something about Jesus and how he defeated the devil. They scared every animal within a mile with all those noises. Arthur wondered if John managed to caught something with such a commotion going on.

The crowd stopped by the river, in the place where water was deep enough to drown a man, especially one in chains. Arthur was taken from the wagon and brought to the shore where he stood right on the edge. He watched the current for a moment, how it carried twigs and leaves. A small fish was fighting against it and trying to go up the river. It failed and got swept away in a blink. Arthur turned to the mob.

“This is the end of our suffering!” the priest shouted in triumph. The lone, distance howl of a wolf accompanied him. Arthur smiled. “The witch won’t be able to hurt us anymore! With his death our town will be clean of sin again!”

“Don’t you have a commandment saying you shouldn’t kill? Doesn’t seem like no sin to me,” Arthur noticed, which only made the mob angrier..

“Silence!” he was ordered and priest continued, interrupted for a moment by another howl, closer this time. “You will not speak about our faith, the servant of the devil doesn’t understand the ways of God. We won’t be killing a human, only an incarnation of evil that was sent here to taint our souls with sin! But we’ll clean ourselves and our town, just like Jesus cleaned himself from sin when he was baptized in Jordan River. 

Another howl joined mob’s cheering. It was so close it seemed to be coming right from behind the crowd. The priest was praying again, talking more about Jesus and his silly wash in some river, and then about the devil and his work. The crowd repeated after him, making the prayer sound more like a mantra than the actual prayer. It echoed between woods on both sides of the river, blending with a faint growl of a wolf. Between people’s heads and their torches, Arthur saw two yellow glowing eyes staring right at him from the darkness.

“This is your last chance,” he said right when priest finished the prayer. Everyone looked at Arthur when they heard seriousness in his voice, and the silence fell upon the riverbank when the crowd waited for him to continue. He watched their faces closely, looking for any sign of regret in them but all he found was determination and more hatred. They were sure of this, they wanted to kill him and clean their little town. “Let me go and no one will die.”

His words didn’t change anything, it only made the mob angrier again. The growl of a wolf became louder, and no one but Arthur heard it. Even if someone did, they thought nothing of it. Bunch of fools.

“You won’t scare us, demon.” Even the priest wasn’t scared anymore like at the beginning, instead he looked at Arthur with hard gaze and head held high. The pure hate towards him was fueling the man, clouding his judgment, and preventing him from taking the last opportunity to save himself and his people. The whole crowd was riled up too much to let go like Arthur was telling them. Not when they believed his death will bring back peace and health back to their town. “Our God is protecting us, he’s more powerful than your devil.”

Arthur already knew that he would hear this. He had nothing else to say to them, he gave them opportunity to save themselves, they choose their faith.

“They’re all yours, darling,” he said, looking into the glowing eyes.

The priest looked at Arthur confused but he got no chance to question him about what he was talking about, because a giant wolf leapt from the woods and with a loud snarl run towards the crowd.

People started screaming and scattered, the priest watched horrified as the wolf clapped his jaws around the torso of one of the town’s people. The man was yelling from pain when the strong jaws were breaking his chest cavity and ripping his flesh apart after wolf started shaking his head to sides. The scream ended abruptly, the man was dropped to the ground and wolf jumped to another one. He caught the fella by the arm and bite it off with one snap of his jaws.

The crowd was panicking and running into each other or even into the wolf, getting right between his open mouth. One man lost his head, the other was stomped to death by other people. The torches fell to the ground and flames disappeared quickly. Darkness draped itself over the riverbank, hiding the massacre from the praying eyes. The only proof of it happening were screams of people getting killed, and the growl of an angry wolf.

The priest didn’t move an inch, Arthur could see him from this close and he heard his fast breathing, his mumbling and useless prayers to his God, begging for rescue. No one came to help him or the others, and the screams only became fewer, the sounds of bones being broken and flesh being torn apart were more prominent than shrieks of pain and terror at the start.

They could see wolf running around and chasing those trying to escape. His massive body leaped through the shadows like he was a part of it. No matter where people tried to run away, the wolf was always there, ready to crush their bodies with his jaws.

Finally the last person was caught. The man screamed like everyone else before him when he was being torn apart, until his yells ended suddenly with a loud snap. Only growl remained, a deep rumbling sweeping through the area like thunder. Arthur lit up the torches again and the priest could see what his actions caused.

The ground looked like a battlefield, bodies scattered everywhere. Some of them had torn limbs, other had chest and bellies cut open. There were broken bones and big wounds that came from the sharp claws when they slashed through the flesh. Blood was already soaking into earth, feeding it.

In the middle of all that stood a black wolf the size of a horse. He watched the priest with piercing eyes, saliva dripping from his open, bloodied muzzle formed into a snarl.

“Dear God, have mercy,” the pries whispered, shaking like a leaf. Arthur placed a hand on his shoulder and the man jumped, looking back at him with shock. “How did you…”

They both looked at the ground when the shackles laid still closed. Arthur smiled.

“I don’t think begging God for help is the right thing to do when it’s a giant wolf coming your way.”

The priest quickly returned his gaze to the growling beast slowly stalking towards them with head bend down, ears laying flat against his skull and teeth gleaming in the light. The yellow eyes tracked priest’s every movement when the man tried to escape. Arthur caught him before he could take more than two steps.

“Not so fast,” he mocked the man and holding him by the arms, he kept him in front of himself, right on the path of the wolf. “We ain’t finished yet, Father. You haven’t meet my familiar yet.”

The wolf snapped his jaws, coming so close that his growl resonated in the bones, in the veins, effortlessly waking up the prime fear every human had inside of them.

“Please I… I’m begging you, let me live, I swear no one will ever bother you again,” the man promised and started crying, his body shaking with each sob. Arthur patted him on the back.

“Little too late for that, Father.” The priest cried harder. Arthur moved closer to whisper in his ear, but his anger took the best of him and it sounded more like growl. “You should’ve thought of that before you ordered all those poor man to bust into my house. You couldn’t even deal with me yourself.”

“Please…”

The wolf silenced him by jumping forward, right in front of the priest who screamed with terror. Arthur shared a look with the wolf before the beast focused solely on the man in front of him. The priest continued to cry when huge jaws moved closer to his face. He wasn’t praying anymore.

“Where is your faith now, Father?” Arthur asked, watching how the puffs of the warm air coming from the wolf hit the man’s face, painting it with blood droplets. “Why aren’t you praying. Pray!”

Arthur shoved the priest to his knees, right in front of the wolf but the man remained silent, he only cried with his big fat tears and snots hanging from the nose.

“I said PRAY, damn it!” Arthur smacked him with the back of his hand, the man shouted in pain and almost fell to the ground.

“Will… Will you let me go if I do?” he asked with a trembling voice.

“No,” Arthur answered truthfully. “But you said your God is stronger than me. Let’s see if that’s true. Don’t you wanna see, Father? Or rather, don’t you want to get a proof of what you already believe in? If you ever believed in it at all.”

The man cried harder, it was pathetic at this point. And tiring. His familiar agreed with him and started growling louder. He stopped when the priest began to pray.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be the n-name. The kingdom come, thy will b-be done, on earth as it in he-heaven.”

There was no certainty in those words, whatever the priest believed in his God or not, right now, when faith turned into fear, God didn’t matter. The one who held his fate in their hands was Arthur. The prayer was for him.

By the end of it, every word coming from priest’s mouth were unintelligible, mumbling mess. His God still didn’t answer, only Arthur and his wolf listened to his last begs for help, for saving.

“Please…” The prayer was hard to understand, the priest had no faith in God saving him. But further begging could do that, so he made sure he was understood. “Let me go, call off the wolf. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Call him off?” Arthur repeated surprised. “After what you did? And what else you wanted to do? How did it go? We will drown you and parade your body around town?” The wolf snarled hearing that. “No, I don’t think I will.” Arthur crouched to the level of the man to whisper to his ear again. “I don’t like when people bust into my house and threatens me. And he doesn’t like it as well. Do with him what you want, John.”

With that, Arthur shoved the man to the ground and stepped back while the wolf got closer, still growling, still showing his fangs. The priest looked up and begged one last time before wolf’s jaws grabbed his torso and yanked him into the air.

The priest screamed while he was being jerked around like a rag doll. The wolf shook his head from side to side quickly, splashing the blood everywhere. The man’s ribs broke under the pressure of the bite, blood started to come out of his mouth, he stopped screaming, only wheezing and gurgling now, fighting for air that wasn’t entering his body.

It went limp at some point, hanging from wolf's jaws like a hunted deer. The wolf dropped the body to the ground and sniffed it, making sure the priest is really dead. The chest was open in some places, showing the bare bone and organs inside. The heart looked intact, perfect for a ritual but Arthur had enough of them at home, no need for another.

The wolf stopped sniffing the chest and moved his head higher. Priest’s eyes were open, still filled with pain and fear. The wolf looked into them for a few seconds before he placed his paw on the man’s collarbone and grabbed the neck with his jaw. Two tugs and a strong snap was enough to rip the head off from the rest of the body.

The wolf readjusted the hold on it and brought the head to Arthur, right into his welcoming hands. Arthur held it in front of his eyes.

“Where is you God now, Father?” he asked before throwing the head over his shoulder. The water would carry it to the town. Arthur looked at the wolf then and smiled, petting the soft fur on his head. “You had fun, didn’t you?”

The wolf licked his palm and crouched low to the ground, almost laying on it. The painful whine slipped from him right before the first bone snapped, followed by a heart wrenching howl. Arthur crouched right next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder when the transformation began to wrench his body, putting bones and organs back to their places. The fur morphed into skin, fangs shrank, just like the whole body that took more human shape. It was still trapped between wolf and human form.

Arthur was talking soothingly to him and weakening the pain as much as he could but that didn’t stop screams and howling, mixed together into inhuman sound that run through the whole forest. He often wished he could do more to stop this suffering, he hated seeing John in so much pain but Arthur’s magic was limited when it came to this. The transformation was something that familiar just had to go through.

When it ended, John almost collapsed to the ground. He was naked, covered in blood of people he just killed. Arthur was still touching his arm, he never stopped, pouring healing magic into him, making the pain go away faster. It took a minute of two where John was panting with exhaustion and sometimes groaning from pain when he was moving slowly to get used to his human body again. He was still shaking a little when Arthur helped him to his feet.

“All right?” he asked concerned, helping John keep his balance.

“Yeah,” he rasped and groaned again when he straightened his back. “Damn, I will never get used to that.” 

Arthur snorted but at the same time, he stroked his lover’s cheek lovingly.

“It’s you who wanted to hunt,” he reminded the younger man.

“And then I needed to save your ass from an angry mob,” John retorted back with a smug look on his face.

Arthur sighed. “It was bound to happen eventually.”

It always did. It happened right before they moved here. Even when they’re being careful, people eventually started suspecting there was something wrong with them. The longest they stayed in one place was three years before they’re chased away.

“Shame. I liked this place.”

“Me too. We’ll find another one, even better.” They always did. Maybe one day they would stay in one place forever. “You caught us dinner?”

John blinked surprised, Arthur could see the moment the realization had hit him. 

“Shit.”

Arthur chuckled and placed a sweet kiss on his lips, not bothered by the metallic taste of blood around and inside John’s mouth. The younger man wrapped his arms around him and kissed back, tangling his fingers in Arthur’s hair to turn his head a little to the side and deepen the kiss. Arthur would gladly allow him something more, John was always a little too eager after transforming back into human, so it was tempting to give in, and making love around all those bodies would let them drain so much living power from them that was still inside, but they had no time to draw necessary symbols and Arthur was really hungry.

Another time, he promised to himself and ended the kiss which caused John to whine in disappointment. 

“Come on,” he said, one last time kissing John softly on the bloodied lips. “I’ll make us an oatmeal.”

John perked up at that. “With raspberries?”

Arthur smiled fondly. “And few spoons of honey.”.

John took the least shredded pants from one of the dead man and put them on before they headed back to their cabin. Not looking back, Arthur flicked his hand, torches went out again and the darkness enveloped both of them, protecting them on their way home when rest of the town’s population arrived to see what happened to their loved ones.


End file.
